A Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee has come out with 18 recommendations they'd like the federal government to work on to improve agriculture trade.

Deputy Chair Senator Terry Mercer says they fall into three broad categories.

"First, steps the Federal Government can take in conjunction with the international trade organizations or its trading partners, two steps that the government can take at home to make the agriculture and agri-food sector more productive and three, steps the government can take with regard to provincial and territorial governments that will make trade within Canada easier," he explained.

Mercer says they're talking about establishing a national committee to monitor non-tariff barriers that Canadian farmers and food producers face when selling in the international markets. Their work would help shape negotiations at eliminating trade barriers. The committee also calls on the government top work with other countries to streamline the World Trade Organization's dispute resolution system to make it more effective.

He says among the steps that can be taken to improve agricultural production are things like improvements to the Temporary Foreign Workers program.

And finally he says the recent signing of the Canada Free Trade Agreement among the provinces is a good first step but it needs to be monitored to see how it unfolds.

Senator Mercer says there's an old saying 'the world needs more Canada', he wants to modify that to 'the world needs more Canadian agriculture and food products'.